


come attrition, come the reek of bones

by thatsparrow



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene, Spoilers: Episode 83
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 16:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21323209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: The worst torment that the gods could devise for her, Yasha thinks—other than their theft of Zuala—is that her mind is awake through every act of bloodshed and treachery that Obann orders of her.--or, Yasha's missing days with Obann and the Hand (minor spoilers through ep: 83)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 72





	come attrition, come the reek of bones

**Author's Note:**

> title from "this is why we fight" by the decemberists

The worst torment that the gods could devise for her, Yasha thinks—other than their theft of Zuala—is that her mind is awake through every act of bloodshed and treachery that Obann orders of her. It is a special sort of cruelty to watch her own feet betray her as they carry her in step beside Obann and the Hand, to sense the disloyal muscles of her arms and shoulders tensing up before they bring down the Magician's Judge in service of Obann's crusade, to feel the spray of warm blood across her cheeks and eyelashes and to carry the guilt of the killing even as she lacks the ability to clean it from her face.

_ I would rather have died under Bazzoxan than be brought to this. I would rather be struck down by the Stormlord than continue living under Obann's sway, would rather my limbs begin to rot around me than to give him any further satisfaction from their service. _

"You seem restless," Obann says to her one evening while the Hand paces a sleepless perimeter outside the ring of their firelight. He reaches out toward her, crooking his fingers under her chin and tilting her head towards the glow; a rough-edged scream rises in Yasha's throat at his touch, held fast on her tongue by the enchantment he's muzzled her with. "I can see it in your eyes. Patience now, Orphan Maker. Sleep easy tonight, for the Angel watches over us, and the morning draws us ever closer to the completion of our aims."

_ Can you see the fury in my eyes, too? _ Yasha wonders as his thumb traces the line of her jaw. _ The rage? Do you know where my restless mind wanders to, when it's free to roam? _ His hand slides to the side of her neck, his thumb settling on the still-bloodstained curve of her cheek. _ You, Obann—bleeding beneath my boot heel. I dream of the day when I will rip the spine from your back and carve the ribs from your chest, when I will crack the bones in half and use the shards to nail you down. I dream of tearing the wings from your shoulders and stringing you up with pieces of your own sinew, playing puppeteer with your body as you have done with mine. _ His touch burns like a brand on her skin; even after he pulls away, she half expects the outline of his hand to be left behind, marking her like a piece of chattel to match the magic he's chained her with. _ Against my will, your voice has become more familiar to me than that of my wife. I wait for the day when I am blessed enough to learn what it sounds like when you scream. _

Still, while the dreams give her some shadow of satisfaction, time passes and Yasha's wished-for future shows no signs of drawing closer. Obann's hold over her persists, her ongoing prayers to the Stormlord go unanswered, and, together with the Hand, Yasha continues to carve a bloody, body-choked wake across Wildemount, two sharp-toothed hounds collared at Obann's heels. As the weeks go on, Yasha's shoulders grow heavy with the weight of all she's done under Obann's command.

_ Please_, Yasha says to the sky while he sleeps, _ kill me or allow me to kill him_. _ However this is meant to end—whether with my death or his—be merciful enough to let it end. Grant me that freedom, and I will welcome it regardless of the form it takes_. She repeats these pleas long enough into the night to track the moon moving across the heavens, imagines her words rising up into the black like a burst of sparks, flickering out without ever catching flame. She prays, and she dreams, and she begs for death or vengeance to free her, but whether or not the gods are listening, they remain as silent as the voice that Obann has dammed in her throat.

—

Yasha has few solaces to help her endure, but she does take comfort in knowing that the Nein had survived and escaped their battle in the King's Cage. She remembers little from the hours after Obann's enchantment had taken hold—too shaken by the self she'd seen in those dredged-up memories to process much of her surroundings—but she does recall them sealing the doors of the tomb on her and the Laughing Hand, and the chambers she'd found empty after the Hand had broken through the barricade. True, Yasha has no way of knowing where their path might have taken them after Bazzoxan, but she can at least ease some of her guilt with the relief that none of them fell by her doing—even when she and the Hand and had worked so brutally to ensure the opposite. This is not her first time apart from them, and she holds fast to the conviction that, as before, their paths will converge again.

(But there are nights when Yasha will fall asleep with blood dried into her nail beds—memories fresh in her mind of watching the Hand's shadow hounds tear open the stomach of some innocent in Obann's path—and she'll hear a voice that sounds very much like his in the back of her mind, unsettling as the shift of a snake through fallen leaves. _ A pretty notion, Orphan Maker, but you know better than to be so naive. It's been weeks since they abandoned you in the King's Cage, more than enough time for some new set of errors to have whittled their numbers. That they were lucky enough to survive once does not mean that they survive still. Perhaps you should already be mourning them_.)

—

_ My love_. When Obann first says it to her, Yasha imagines carving the name out of his tongue and choking him with it even as the words settle fast around her neck, rough and chafing as a noose. _ My love_. As if he holds any claim over her other than what his magic's bought him. As if she wouldn't rather tear her own heart from her chest than let it be his.

_ My love_. Does he know that's what Zuala used to say to her, too? Has he stolen glimpses of those private moments in Yasha's memories the same way he's robbed her of so much else? _ My love_. Zuala had said it without expectation, without demanding anything of Yasha in return, offered like a promise in the pockets of intimacy they'd stolen together; Obann chokes her with it, reminding her of his ownership over her body like he's fastening a collar around a wayward pet. 

_ My love_. He says it now while urging her on in battle, directing her blades against some new target and smiling shark-toothed when she pulls back with the steel stained red to the hilt. _ My love_. He says it with pride, as if Yasha fights at his side of her own volition, as if she kills for him because she shares in his crusade and not because she's bound to him by the tangled knots of his magic. 

_ My love_. He says it to her in the evenings, too, and there it weighs on her heaviest of all. _ My love_. Drunk on the sound of his own voice, he talks to Yasha long into the nights—his captive audience in more ways than one—speaking of the future they'll share when the Angel is free, the infernal home he imagines when the Angel has turned the rest of the world to ash. _ My love_. Wherever this path of his leads, he intends to keep her at his side until the finish, will keep her bound to his side through the end of days unless she finds a way to snap the chain herself.

—

"I need information if we are to revive Jourrael," Obann had said to her and the Hand one morning. "But, much like the resting place of the Hand, such knowledge was kept largely unwritten, a tactic to ensure that our allies rotted indefinitely, wasn't it, Hand?"

The Hand hadn't responded—Yasha's still not sure if he's even able to speak—but jagged, dissonant laughter had whispered out from his tooth-edged wounds.

"A cruel injustice indeed. Still, the mages of the past were too proud to allow such information to be forgotten entirely, and there are several repositories of written history in the Empire that I believe may hold our answers." He'd reached out a hand to Yasha, her own arm mirroring the movement even without her mind's consent. "What do you say, my love? Are you ready to see the city?"

She hadn't spent enough time in Zadash to recognize it upon their arrival, but it doesn't take her long after seeing the three silver-tipped spires in the distance to make the connection. It catches her off guard at first, feels too bold of Obann to risk bringing them to such a populated area, but Yasha supposes she shouldn't be surprised. Who is he to care if she has to soak a city block in spilled blood for them to make their escape? Who is he to fear the Crownsguard or the Righteous Brand when he walks with the Laughing Hand at his side? Still, it seems that Obann had at least brought them somewhere indoors—all arched ceilings and tall, glass-paned windows; _ a repository of written history _, he had said—so, perhaps, if the gods are feeling kind, their mission might pass with little bloodshed.

Yasha is still looking out the window towards the Tri-Spires when she realizes that Obann is speaking to someone. She turns to see an uneasy-looking halfling perched behind a desk who begins giving Obann directions somewhere while glancing over at the hulking silhouette of the Hand. 

"The lower levels, was it?" Obann says. "Much obliged."

"Yes, but, sir—" The halfling steps out from behind their station, and Yasha can see then that they're dressed in robes of a familiar bright blue. Bile rises fast in her throat on the heels of her understanding. "Sir, you can't just—"

"Clear a path," Obann says.

So they do.

The first person that Yasha kills is a bright-eyed elf balancing a stack of books under their chin: they step out into the aisle as sounds of alarm begin to spread through the Cobalt Soul and Yasha's blade is there to meet them, carving sideways into their stomach far enough to scrape against their ribs. Then a grey-robed novice running for the stairs—they land heavy on the steps with one hand still gripping the railing, Skingorger buried into the crux of their shoulder. An older archivist who gathers a white glow of magic in front of him before Yasha cuts the incantation from his throat. Her arms feel heavy by the time they reach the first level of basements, already weary from their executioner's rise-and-fall.

_ Please stop this_, Yasha asks of the heavens. _ Please stop _ me. _ Better my life be forfeit than turned to such ends _ . Another archivist comes up the stairs and she moves Skingorger to meet them before they've even reached the landing, sword sunk in deep enough under their left arm to nearly sever it entirely. _ You saved me once, Stormlord—surely it is not out of your powers to do so again_? As her body obediently follows Obann down further into the basements, Yasha pictures a tree sundered by lightning, split and charred down to the roots. She imagines a blue-white bolt sent from the Stormlord's hand to strike her sky-raised sword, blinding electricity crackling from the tip of the blade to the hilt, down to her hand and running along her arm, bypassing her armor to scorch through her heart. 

_ I ask little of you, Stormlord, but I ask now for this. Send a storm as you did before._

The stones grow slick beneath her feet with the blood of another archivist, a human man who's staring at her glass-eyed from where he'd fallen half-under a table. She'd cloven Skingorger deep enough into his back that she can see the ridges of his spine through the open curtain of his shoulders.

_ Please_.

They're three floors underground, but Yasha would swear she feels a breeze stirring the hair at her neck, shifting the stale air around her and bringing the faint smell of ozone and the sharp chill of a winter storm. She blinks as something wet rolls down her cheek, and then another; even here below the earth, she waits to hear the roll of thunder from a sky of bruise-dark clouds. Another drop lands, and then a fourth, and it's only then that Yasha realizes they aren't raindrops falling from above but tears beading against her lower lashes and sliding down her cheeks. A different kind of storm perhaps, but one she can take as a sign nonetheless. She's had no ability to give voice to her grief since Obann's enchantment had taken hold; the Stormlord may not yet be able to loosen her from her chains, but he can at least offer her the freedom to mourn.

She gives her thanks to him in the same manner that she weeps: silently.

—

Just as she wonders if the gods have turned their eyes to Obann's mad crusade, Yasha wonders if the Nein are watching over her, too. She knows it's within Jester's abilities to do so, to disregard the miles between her and the object of her focus as easy as pulling back a curtain, and so it doesn't seem an unfathomable idea. She'd traveled with them long enough for the Nein to wonder after her still, hadn't she? Even if not for her, she imagines they must be curious to track the progress of Obann's path.

Some days, the thought is a reassuring one. She pictures the blue ribbon of Jester's magic unrolling across the content like a river, one end held tight in Jester's hand while the other fastens itself around Yasha's wrist: a connection that neither the Hand's blade nor Obann's magic could sever. When Yasha thinks of it like that, it's a comfort. Even if her only immediate companions are Obann and the Hand, she can believe that her friends are with her still.

(Most days, though, Yasha hopes that Jester isn't looking. She's ashamed enough of what Obann's magic has compelled her to do without anyone else seeing what she's become.

—

After Zadash, Obann's path to Jourrael takes them deep into the Savalierwood, purple-touched trees closing in around them like shadowed fingers as they push towards Veluthil. There are pockets of the wood where the trunks grow close enough together that the Hand sometimes has difficulty finding a path between them. Yasha appreciates whatever circumstances conspire to slow Obann's path, but even so, it feels too soon that the forest starts to shift around them, the trees pulling back in an arc to carve out a clearing around the hollowed ruins of Veluthil.

"Tread carefully," Obann says to her and the Hand. "The mages of the past proved most creative when it came to building their safeguards." He lets the Hand lead the charge, waiting until its huge and heavy feet have marked a path of safety before following in its stead. Yasha hopes that he's telling the truth, that the Veluthil weighs heavy with traps clever and caustic enough to overcome the Hand and Obann both.

For all Obann's words of caution, though, he never seems ill-prepared to face the threat before him, and it galls her to see relative ease with which he accomplishes his efforts. The feeling that she should be working against him somehow lives like a sharp-edged rock under her sole, digging into her skin whenever she shifts her feet, but what is there really for her to do? She can't even sharpen her blades without his consent, let alone act to sabotage his works. The frustration weighs on her along with the guilt, and Yasha becomes used to shouldering the burden of them both. Still, there is some small comfort that this newest task has taken them to a forgotten corner of the world, absent any signs of life save for the three of them.

Then again, that thought soon withers when Yasha considers what fresh bloodshed Obann could bring forth with Jourrael at his side.

"Do you know the story of Jourrael, my love?" Obann had asked her before their assault on the Cobalt Soul. "They were said to be Lolth's favored assassin, made uniquely deadly through a contract forged with Asmodeus. _ The Inevitable End_, they were called—a creature capable of passing through solid barriers as easily as you wield your blade through the air. No fortress walls could deny them, no spellcraft could truly prevent them. Imagine what we could accomplish with such a power at our side."

_ You will see the world shattered before you are through, _ Yasha had thought. _ There will be no end but oblivion if you insist on breaking the chains of the horrors of the past. If only the Nein had more thoroughly killed you. If only I hadn't brought you back_.

The dangers of the Veluthil are far from inconsequential, but Obann emerges from them mostly unscathed, the Hand having shouldered the bulk of the fallout. Yasha had thought for a moment that one of the shade guardians might succeed with its withering touch—sapping Obann's will while his body had decayed—but the shadow hounds proved too faithful in their work, snapping the spirit from the air and chewing at it until it had dissipated. There is a look of triumph on Obann's face when he breaks through the last of the safeguards and reaches for the skull, large enough that he almost has to lift it with both hands. That just leaves the heart in the Lotusden, then, and even knowing the dangers of Xhorhas firsthand, Yasha thinks it unlikely that they slow Obann for long. They have some distance to travel, but if Obann is indeed successful in the Lotusden, he could have Jourrael revived within a month.

_ Is this what you want? _ Yasha thinks to the gods. _ Is this what you'd intended when you built the world? To watch some madman raze it to the ground? Is it that you don't see, or that you don't care? If you won't intervene when the stakes are so grave, then what the _ fuck _ is the point of you? _

—

Truly, the last thing that Yasha expects to see in the heart of the Lotusden are the Nein. She'd hoped for it, sure, but she's hoped for a great many things in the past months—in the span of her life, too, so long as she's counting—and very few of them had ever come to pass, so she'd no reason to think this would be any different. But, then, there they are: she's standing guard at the base of the infernal tree and suddenly the air is shifting in front of her like the heat of a summer sun on a distant road, and it's Nott standing in front of her, as small and green and fierce-eyed as Yasha remembered. There's an opaque hand in the air above her, and Yasha gets just enough of a look to see that it's pulling on the pouch with Jourrael's skull that's fastened to Obann's hip.

_ You must succeed_, Yasha thinks, desperate. _ If you know he is trying to wake Jourrael, you must know how dire the situation has become_— but she's cut short by a blur of movement to her left and the happiness that Yasha feels at seeing Beau again is quickly eclipsed when she feels her body start to shift in a defensive stance against her. Beau's lack of armor has always worried Yasha, but never more than seeing her facing the end of Skingorger.

_ You know how I fight_, Yasha thinks, as if Beau can hear her. _ Please be fast enough. Please don't let me kill you. _With every tense of her muscles, every shift of the blade, she wills herself to move even a half-second slower, to stutter the movement of her arms enough for Beau to read the attack and twist out of the way. It's a fruitless effort, but Yasha tries anyway.

Fighting Beau (while also trying very hard to not-fight Beau) has pulled most of her attention from Obann's efforts in the sky above her, but she has to imagine that his only focus is on Jourrael's heart, and shouldn't this be the moment she'd waited for? When will she next be lucky enough to have Obann distracted and allies in front of her?

Then Skingorger opens up a horizontal line across Beau's stomach and it burns at Yasha to realize that it won't be so simple. Yes, her friends are here with her, but how are they supposed to help her when the edge of Yasha's blade is so hungry to carve them open? How are they supposed to heal her from the stranglehold of Obann's magic when their window of opportunity is so narrow? Fighting Obann and the Hand is already hard enough without also trying to untangle the threads of his magic from her nerves. They must separate her from Obann before they can try to heal her, else any encounter will only end badly for the whole of them; she would have no interest in her own freedom if it was bought at the price of one of their lives. 

Given her new understanding of the circumstances—the guilt she already feels at seeing the new bloodstains on Beau's wraps and knowing her sword was the cause of them—it's almost something of a relief when she realizes that Obann has accomplished his goal. Jourrael's heart in hand, he flies down towards her and says, "Come, my love," before shifting the two of them away.

She misses the Nein at once, but she'll gladly take the ache of their absence over seeing them fallen and bleeding at her feet.

—

Yasha has experienced few satisfactions more sudden and savage than seeing Obann's fury when the Hand begins to decay. At first, it's nothing more than the occasional stumble in the rhythm of his thudding feet—enough to catch Obann's attention but not so troubling for him to investigate further—yet it soon becomes apparent that the Hand's condition is only growing worse. His bladed arm droops low at his side, digging a furrow through the ground as he continues stumbling forward, and the laughter from his wounds has grown whispery quiet and stuttered.

Obann _ seethes_.

"You miserable _ fucking _ disappointment." By now, the Hand's skin has begun to sag, growing loose and hollow around his jaw like a mask sliding down his face. "This is Torog's great champion? His lauded, favorite servant? You can't even hold your cursed fucking body together when we're this close—this _ fucking close_—to the finish line?"

The Hand plants the tip of his blade into the earth, leans on it heavy as he sinks down to one knee. Even from a distance, Yasha can hear how the laughter from his wounds has become ragged and weak, hissing out slow and broken. Obann draws his own sword fast as a bolt, cuts a long diagonal down the Hand's forearm, but no new mouth grows around its edges.

"All that time, all that effort, for _ this_?" The skin around the wound is starting to turn grey and cracked like something charred, the blood and muscle underneath withering like rotted meat. Yasha would smile broadly if her mouth allowed it.

Her lips twitch.

Obann whips toward her, moving forward until he's close enough to grip the back of her neck. His fingers tangle in her hair, and he tugs just enough for her to feel the sting of it.

"Smile all you want, Orphan Maker, but this changes nothing. _ Fuck _ the Hand. You think I need him? You think I can't loose the Angel's chains without him? Jourrael has always been just as fine a prize." His grip tightens further, tilting her head back slightly. He leans closer and hisses into her ear, "Do you think this means that someone is coming to save you? I still hold your heart, Orphan Maker. I still _ own you_."

_ For how much longer, I wonder? You thought the Hand yours, too. _

As if he can hear her, Obann snarls, letting go of his hold on her neck before shoving her to her knees. His hand wraps around the column of her throat, tilting her chin upwards so she has no choice but to look at him.

"So long as I live, you will be there at my side. Smile now, but we'll see if this moment still brings you the same satisfaction when I have your friends by the collar and you are bleeding them dry one cut at a time. I will not lose this fight, Orphan Maker, and I will not lose _ you _." He punctuates the last few words with sharp emphasis before letting go of his hold on her neck, her head falling forward a little as he moves back to the dying Hand. 

He can make every effort to cover it up with anger and threats, but Yasha has spent enough time with Obann by now to understand that there was a thread of panic under the fury. He'd thought the Hand to be immutable and somehow, somewhere—knowing them, likely something to do with the Nein—that bedrock had been broken open. He hadn't accounted for such a reversal in fortune. He hadn't believed himself or his plan to be fallible. Not to say the threat of his words doesn't worry her—Yasha can only imagine his ire and the repercussions if the Nein were indeed involved and he learned of that fact—but Yasha allows herself to set aside those worries for the moment. There's too much sun on her face for her to willingly move back into the shadows.

_ Are you feeling afraid yet, Obann? Good. Your days will only grow worse before this is through and—as you said—I will be there at your side until you fall. I wouldn't miss seeing the disappointment in your eyes before I cut the life out of them. _Obann's stalked off several yards away, shoulders tensed tight and wings flared wide in his frustration. Yasha's mouth twitches again, unconscious, the corners of her mouth almost curving up.

_ Can you see it, Obann? Your end is coming_.


End file.
